Mission Ready
by Proton Star
Summary: Fixing someone's body was only the first step to setting them right. (PG-13 gen fic. Set between the first two films, spoilers for the first film.)


Title: Mission Ready

Author: Proton Star

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, Sylvester Stallone and friends do. No money is being made from this.

Fandom: The Expendables

Characters: Barney Ross, Gunner Jensen, Yin Yang and Toll Road

Ratings/Warnings: PG-13 gen fic. Set between the first two films, spoilers for the first film.

Summary: Fixing someone's body was only the first step to setting them right.

* * *

Fixing Gunnar's body was the first step. And it was the easiest one by far. The bullet had been enough to keep Gunnar down for long enough to get him off Yang, get Gunnar to a doctor who didn't ask questions and them off on the mission, but it hadn't caused any lasting damage. Despite the various things people had done to Gunnar, and that he'd done to himself, he was probably going to outlast the cockroaches.

But that was only the first step. They needed to fix Gunnar's brain.

First they dried him out. They'd looked at all the rehab centres they could find, and saw exactly how easy they were to break out of and how much collateral damage Gunnar would cause escaping, so instead they hired a warehouse and locked him in it for a week. They checked on him when he fell asleep - Gunnar snored like a pig and hadn't ever learnt how to fake that convincingly.

Barney had a plan for what would happen next, and there'd have to be a next because Yang said he refused to carry on unless they fixed Gunnar, because "it's always me he picks on". That, or Yang wanted danger pay for each mission.

"No, you cannot have the name of my therapist." Unfortunately it was a plan that Toll Road was not helping with, despite it being him who'd given Barney the idea. "It'd be a total conflict of interest for her. I mean, I might tell her something that affects how she sees Gunnar or he might say something about me. Anyway, she's a nice lady and Gunnar's a psycho."

Barney kept at him and Toll Road kept saying no, till one day he came back with a name. "I asked her for the name of someone who wouldn't freak at what we do, was good at their job and that she wouldn't miss if something went wrong. She gave me this guy's name."

Barney had to give the shrink this much, he hadn't run screaming at the idea. They'd given him an emergency alarm to use if Gunnar went psycho during a session, and Barney waited outside during each time just in case.

Apparently it was slow work.

Barney tried to be sympathetic. It was probably as much luck as anything else that he hadn't ended up like Gunnar, or Tool, who couldn't pick up a gun in anger anymore. Sometimes you just hit your limit and then you snapped, or you were like Church, who was less human and more a CIA machine.

Then, just when Gunnar kind of settled down, Yang started to do strange things. He'd sidle in, pick up Gunnar's meds, put them down and then sneak back out. Barney didn't think Yang was doing anything to the meds, if he were, Yang would be stealthier about it. After these sorties, Barney would find pieces of paper slipped onto his desk, lists of side effects to watch out for, one for each pill Gunnar was taking.

Gunnar finally found some meds that worked for him, and they fitted a pack into their first aid kits because, well, disasters happened, sometimes missions didn't finish when you thought they would and generally, no plan survives contact with the enemy. It wasn't perfect, thank you Yang for the note on how to properly store medication, but if you needed everything to go to plan, you weren't ever going to cut it as a merc.

And it worked, mostly. Gunnar had good days and bad days like the rest of them, but there were fewer 'let's hang the pirates' days, so they can deal with it. To Barney, it felt good to be out there with the full crew again. It wasn't like they'd been idle, but when everyone was together, Barney knew exactly what jobs they could handle, and that they d finish anything they started. It made him feel safer out there, even if the whole crew were still nuttier than squirrel shit. Then again, you had to be to survive in this life.


End file.
